Government opens up information on everyday services

Heinz boasts of 57 varieties on its labels – and is open about the number of products it actually produces. Now, the Cabinet Office has collected and released details of every single government transactional service.

We all know that a certain famous baked beans manufacturer boasts of having 57 varieties of product (although it readily admits on its website that it actually produces more than 5,700), and a little research would probably reveal the totals for any number of other well-known brands.

But would you have any idea how many services are run by central government and what they are? Almost certainly not. What's more, there would previously have been no way to find out definitively – and we in government didn't know either.

What do we mean by "transactional services"? These are the facilities that citizens and businesses use to pay tax, apply for licences and loans, and receive, request or order other goods and services, or provide or request information.

They include payments for road tax or income tax, applications for passports, visas, driving licences, jobseeker's allowance or student loans, as well as providing or requesting information on a whole range of matters from income to apprenticeship vacancies. Some of these can already be carried out online, while others are available by post, phone or face-to-face. In all, nearly 60 services record a million or more annual transactions.

To get an idea of the numbers involved, we have created a visualisation of the transactions handled by the busiest departments, two of which, HM Revenue & Customers and the Department for Communities and Local Government, each manage well over half a billion in a year.

This data release is a model of transparency. As well as being visible, and of value, to citizens, businesses and government, it is new information for all.

Allowing the public to see what services government provides, the release will help departments and agencies decide where to focus their efficiency efforts and learn lessons as they move to make delivery of all services "digital by default".

The initial list of transactions is based on currently available data, and we are encouraging users to provide feedback that can be used to enhance the accuracy and quality of future releases.

The next crucial step to driving greater efficiency and improving service delivery will be the publication towards the end of the year of an updated list, including the costs per transaction of the most used services. These naturally offer the greatest potential for reducing costs, and the data will provide a baseline for ongoing comparison and highlight where efficiency savings are being made.

As services go digital, providers need to be able to judge how well they are working for users, and whether the changes they make are actually improving delivery.

To help departments and agencies make the best of the data and maximise the savings from the move online, we have also published a beta version of a digital performance framework, giving step-by-step guidance on how to measure and manage the performance of transactional services. The framework covers the use of digital tools including web analytics, data aggregation and data visualisation.

Feedback from users of the alpha version, released in June, included suggestions for how to improve the framework and many of these have been incorporated into the beta version.

Releasing the new data on 24 July, Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude said these new releases go "right to the heart of our twin commitments to make government more open and public services cheaper, more efficient and focused on users".